A magnetic recording medium stores data as regions of alternating magnetic orientation. In a hard disk drive, for example, data is written in circular tracks that include sequential changes in the direction of magnetization. The amount of data stored on a hard disk is generally determined by the areal density multiplied by the surface area of the magnetic disks available for data storage. Currently, hard disks come in a few standard form factors, and increases in total drive storage capacity have been made possible by continually increasing areal density of the magnetic disks.